IBM Ad Execs Who Should Be Fired

Watching television last night, I couldn’t fail to take notice of this new IBM ad:

‘For the first time in history, more people live in cities than anywhere else, which means cities have to get smarter.’ […] ‘Paris has smart healthcare; smart traffic systems in Brisbane keep traffic moving; Galway has smart water’.

A major water crisis has left scores of people ill and tens of thousands at risk from contamination in a west of Ireland city. Galway’s water supply has been hit by an outbreak of the parasite cryptosporidium, with up to 170 people now confirmed to have been affected by a serious stomach bug as a result. Tests found that the city’s water supply contained nearly 60 times the safe limit of cryptosporidium pollution. Residents have already been unable to drink or use water for food preparation for weeks.

Residents in parts of Co. Galway have been hit by a new outbreak of the cryptosporidium parasite.Tests on the Roundstone Public Water Scheme showed trace elements of the parasite, as did water schemes for Inishnee and Errisbeg.

Council engineers in Galway have begun work on providing safe drinking water for up to 1,000 householders […] where supplies have been contaminated by lead. The residents have been advised not to drink tap water until further notice.

Apparently the IBM ad is referring to something to do with tides and aquaculture in Galway Bay, rather than the worst sequence of water-quality disasters in Ireland for several decades. But really — someone at IBM’s marketing department should have done a little more research first before using that line…

2 Comments

Don’t worry – that’s not the only one they got wrong. The “smart traffic systems in Brisbane” are referring to the world’s most moronic traffic lights. They pretty much guarantee that the main flow of traffic gets the most red lights and that traffic is a nightmare.

At one point they even threatened to deliberately make the lights worse to “encourage” people to use the frighteningly expensive toll-tunnel they’re currently building under the river (I think it will be around $8 a go).